


Of Those that She Loved...

by arnediadglanduath



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Abstract, Background Relationships, F/M, Romance turned Ruin, Tragedy and Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 02:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16399610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arnediadglanduath/pseuds/arnediadglanduath
Summary: ...He was the best.[And then he was the worst.]





	Of Those that She Loved...

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a companion piece to Nepenthe/Miasma but it can be read on its own if you're just a fan of Final Fantasy 7 and not into the slashy stuff.
> 
> There's likely some inaccuracies in plot but I digress, this is not a favored pairing but I had this morbid urge to write it.

He wasn't always cruel.

Watching as that swatch of white lab coat paced in front of her...Lucrecia couldn't help but wonder when things had gone so wrong. There was a time when she had looked forward to the sight of it coming down the hall...had waited anxiously for the swish of fabric, the clean smell of soap, and the flash of moon-shaped spectacles. There was a time when she had waited with eager anticipation for the clock above the door to strike 2200...because that was when he got off his shift...when he finally left his experiments and his ambitions and settled in the Lounge for a glass of scotch and a cigar. There was a time when she respected him, because despite the fact that he wasn't the head of the Project...he was still brilliant. Only a fool would fail to call Hojo brilliant. Sometimes she wondered if that brilliance was what kept him from being entirely humane, but she doubted it.

_”For Science!”_

He used to smile.

 _Laugh_... He used to laugh. It was a rare thing, but there was a time when the sound coming from his mouth was less of deranged cackle and more of a whole-hearted form of mirth. And maybe his humor had leaned more towards the macabre, but there was an undertone of youthfulness behind it that she hadn’t been able to fully turn away from...hadn’t been able to hide from. He laughed _at_ her...laughed when she forgot a calculation, when she didn’t use a formula correctly or when she was late. At first she’d assumed it was mocking...and it was, a little bit...but the more time that wore on the more she realized it was a childish kind of teasing. It was endearing to her, because his admiration was clearly borne from little to no romantic experience.

_“Can I gain anything of value from you?”_

Like a cat, really.

When she’d first met him, that was the only thing she was able to compare him to. He was flighty, irritable and aloof but strangely graceful. All long, brown hair, sharp features...curved lips and glittering eyes. He kept to himself; only stated his opinions when they’d hold the most weight...deferred grudgingly to Gast but always ultimately made his own decisions. Maybe that was why she admired him...because he was so clearly and deliberately self-separated. He thought highly of himself but she told herself that she admired his confidence, that she aspired to be so self-assured.

_“...I’ll simply do whatever I want.”_

Unromantic.

That was her initial opinion, anyway. She was somewhat right, because he never did anything remotely in the realms of normal romanticism to earn her affections. It was the little things that caught her attention. The way he started putting her petri dishes away...the ones she always forgot to. And they weren’t important experiments, just things she was looking at on the side that she never really had time to keep track of...but he did. He washed her work surfaces if he thought that she wasn’t looking, checked her charts and rearranged her filing cabinets because _’they were a disaster’_. Hair...he swept her hair over her shoulder if he felt like it was getting too close to the cultures...told her to put it up because _’there was just too much of it.’_

_”I don’t do dates.”_

Liar.

He was a liar; because he did do dates. He just refused to conventionally define them. When Grimoire died it felt like they were _always_ on a date because he’d bring down their lunches and they’d eat them on a blanket spread across the laboratory floor. They never talked much, but those ombre eyes would cut to her...observant, calculating...but also with a hint of shyness that had a sliver of warmth blooming in her chest that she told herself she would _never_ hearken to. Because as much as he was subtly sweet he was outwardly cold, and she could never shoulder that coldness in a relationship with him. And it was kind that he would worry about her-so she told herself-but she didn’t always know if that worry was because he was concerned for _her_ or concerned for the Project.

_”There are so many frivolous things in this world…”_

_”Don’t let Hojo’s awkwardness blind you to his darkness, Doctor. Fledgling crows won’t turn into swans...no matter how much you love them.”_

Grimoire was wrong.

Because while he was driven initially, there wasn’t any of that crawling poison that seemed to seep from him in waves in the later years. And maybe they were all cruel, because it’s not like anything had ever stopped them from experimenting on human beings before. She’d catalogued faceless and nameless subjects submerged in mako and called it science...went to bed without guilt because they were criminals on death row and couldn’t possibly redeem themselves. And he was never more attentive than when she was working on them...than when she had a scalpel in her hand and she was slicing them open with a detached professionalism. Those eyes...those brown eyes.

_They were so hungry._

_”Just...let me see it.”_

Maybe she was the monster.

It wasn’t like she had stopped him with his proclivities...but then again, none of them had. Gast was discontent with him, spoke wearily of him...like he was wayward child who needed beating. But maybe he’d needed help. And she’d pitied him a little bit; in that cruel merciless way that girls can pity. She’d given him attention because some part of her wanted to save him...but how do you save someone from something you’re just as much a facet of? How do you find someone’s soul in a dark mansion surrounded by cold mountains and unspeakable horror? How do you salvage a life when you destroy life on a daily basis for the sake of _’the greater good?’_

_”You’re...beautiful.”_

Once. He had called her beautiful once. When they were working with Jenova...when the lights of the reactor had caught her hair and eyes as they drew samples from the specimen, he had looked over and called her beautiful. He’d asked her to come with him even though he didn’t have to...asked her to help him collect data because-she supposed-in some way he must have wanted her to acknowledge him. And the glitter behind his eyes was a little bit unhinged...a little bit frenzied and full of fire. But it wasn’t like she hadn’t felt the same; like she hadn’t blushed until he blushed and then they’d stood there in awkward silence while the culmination of all future terrors spread metal wings above them.

_”These are the results we wanted.”_

...But were they?

How long did you have to chase a dream before it became a nightmare? How far did you have to dig before you found things that should never see the light of day? And there were fights, _oh_ there were fights on the nature of Specimen J’s true origins. Screaming matches between two brilliant minds that could never and had never seen eye to eye. The cellular composition was wrong...it was too virulent...too destructive...too dangerous. Cetras were a peaceful race, nothing about this was indicative of the Cetra. They couldn’t proceed without more knowledge...they didn’t know enough but he insisted that it was enough. But it wasn’t enough. _....It wasn’t enough._

_”Gast betrayed us.”_

Really, they’d betrayed Gast.

The Project was tenuous...she rarely saw Gast...truthfully, she was never given the _’option’_ of whether she wanted to see him. But the fact that Hojo thought her worth enough to be on his team after she was misplaced upon Grimoir’s death blinded her to the reality of the situation. There was a division...a chasm between everything they had begun and what they were now. All of them believed in different things; had different visions for what they wanted or-in Hollander’s case-were too jealous to be cohesive. She told herself it was professionalism...that intellectual pursuits often took different veins of approach and there was nothing wrong with that. But she was unhappy, so unhappy and so guilty. She hid that guilt...buried it by telling herself that the success of the Project would ameliorate that guilt...that her mortal debts would be repaid and then maybe she could find peace.

_”Go beyond the powers of science…”_

She worked too hard.

She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t studying, when she wasn’t desperately working to achieve something. She’d never had friends, and her family was small...she had no siblings and her mother died before she could see her graduate. Maybe that was why she was approved to work on the Project. Because no one would miss her if something happened...because she was successful but ultimately groundless and of little worth outside of her purpose. That truth left her lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling and wishing she could shrink into nothingness. Because she was nothing but the Project...she was no one.

_”Once a scientist...always a scientist.”_

Vincent Valentine was so young.

She’d loved him a little bit. Not enough to return his very obvious affections but enough to try to protect him from the truth. And it was hard to look into his eyes and see his father staring back at her. Because she had loved Grimoire a little bit more...had looked up to him and wanted to be like him. Both of them were kind, both of them were brilliant and quiet in that soft...shimmering way that reminded her of black velvet and starlight. But she was too guilty...too sad and too lonely to really be able to give him all that he might need. And when he found out about his sire’s demise, instead of talking to him she’d run to the one person who could never understand…

_”We should get married.”_

Jealousy drove him.

It didn’t occur to her until much later that Hojo had only proposed because he felt backed into a corner. She didn’t know if he had ever loved her...maybe that love would have developed if he didn’t feel the need to take what was his before it became something real...but that was what he did. And she was so sorry and unhappy that she’d jumped at the chance to belong to someone, to have something that she called her own. It wasn’t really a proposal at all, it was a suggestion. Like throwing out a calculation in a lecture hall and waiting for the student to answer in kind. And she was the stupid, starstruck pupil that raised her hand highest, waved it fastest and was called on before the rest. Because Hojo was threatened by Vincent and the concept was so stupid. Vincent was sweet and handsome and everything a woman could want, but she was too work-focused for him...not sentimental and not kind enough. Hojo had never had competition...but his perception of it destroyed them.

“I do.”

He didn’t.

 _He didn’t._ They got married in the mansion, and there wasn’t a ceremony. They signed pieces of paper and someone made them swear something and then it was forgotten. They stood in a room with an officiate and said their vows like they were subjective tests for a phase in an experiment. If there was anything different from their day-to-day lives, it was that they didn’t wear their lab coats and their hair was down. She could remember shaking...that her hands were so small in his and that he seemed so large. That his glasses kept sliding down his nose because he was sweating and the tie he wore was green. Someone bought rings...she was fairly sure it was neither of them, some well-meaning tech who’d thought further ahead.

_”Come to bed…”_

Maybe they were an experiment.

But that first week...the seven days they took off from the Project to know each other...they were beautiful in that strange, cold way that was everything her husband was. They made love and it was a soul-breaking, breathless thing...and she soared everywhere and nowhere and fell to pieces in his arms. She would never forget him, never forget the way he buried his face in her neck, the way he trembled over her as he found his release...the way he spoke her name in that broken way that made her feel like he was saying he loved her. Afterward, he called it _’sex’_ and left her in an empty bed to check on his developing specimens. But there were times when he would look at her...late at night with all that hair falling down over his face and his glasses on the bedside table. Skinny like a wraith...pale like moonlight and somehow achingly beautiful and sad.

….Like a rose blooming in a dark room.

_”Love is a chemical reaction in the brain.”_

He was young once.

Hojo was young and there were moments when he looked at her like he was afraid of her. Like she held the keys to the universe and she could unlock them all or destroy them with a single word. She thought it was funny because her feelings were much the same. But he destroyed her over and over, with his disdain...with his frigid demeanor that never changed. And Lucrecia lived for those split-seconds of tenderness; for when he would lean over her shoulder and put a hand on her waist while she worked...when he would briefly take her hand to lead her to bed...when he stared at her in the midnight hours when he thought she was sleeping...like she wasn’t really there or she was going to disappear at any given moment. Maybe they were both afraid of loving each other, but he took that fear and made it into something cruel and heartless because he couldn’t stand the thought that she might do it first.

“You’re pregnant.”

He knew before she did.

How he knew she never found out and she never asked...she didn’t know if she would like the answer. When he said it, it was like he was relieved. Like he didn’t have to try so hard to keep her close to him. And there was something wrong behind the statement, like it was the beginning of something. At the same time, it was the end. Looking back, she didn’t know how he’d convinced her to give their unborn child to the Project. Only that she didn’t know what it was like to have children, that she didn’t know the worth of being a mother until her soul was sealed away. Vincent was hysterical...unconsolable. Like the child growing within her was his and not Hojo’s...but it wasn’t. And when he tried to move to prevent it, it cost him his life.

_”Both of us are scientists, we know what we’re doing.”_

Maybe he knew.

Maybe he always knew, but she didn’t. She thought she was signing their child up for a step ahead of everyone else, that he would be special and loved. From her few memories of her childhood, that was what she thought a mother was supposed to do; make sure that their child got the best opportunities in life possible. And what better way to do that than to make him stronger, smarter, and more beautiful than any that could come before? She wanted him to be able to get away from this, and even if she couldn’t do that, she wanted to make sure that he had the chance to rise above it all...to become something better. And maybe she could teach him kindness...even if she knew nothing of it herself. Even if her husband was the picture of everything that was the opposite of warmth.

_”I was thinking of labelling it Jenova-Infused Specimen Number One.”_

His interest waned as their baby grew.

And because the universe was cruel, she found that the more he pulled away the more desperate she was to cling to him. She wanted him to see their child for what he was...for what they had made him to be. And he might not have been created with love, but he could _have_ love, if they let him. But Hojo didn’t see their child as an individual, he saw him as an experiment. She didn’t know how she had missed that, how she’d been so blind as to assume that he might see something they created as more than an opportunity to scientifically progress. He didn’t want a baby...he wanted a test tube. And since she’d inconvenienced him by getting pregnant, she might as well be the vessel for his intents. Realistically, she hadn’t thought about it really. Birth control was something she’d never worried about before, and the idea of having a child was simply something that married couples did. Faced with the reality of it, she’d conceded that maybe this was not the best approach to have taken. Nobody approved...Gast didn’t approve but he didn’t want Hojo to have free reign so he accepted his offer and looked at her like he didn’t know who she was anymore.

_”I thought I smelled a rat down here.”_

Discovering what had been done to Vincent nearly broke her.

It was, really, what had opened her eyes to the fact that whatever Hojo was...it wasn’t her husband. Not anymore in any case. He’d let his fears drive him to heinous lengths to keep her confined...had _murdered_ -or tried to murder-and then experimented on her friend just because he thought he was competition and because he disagreed with him. She healed Vincent at great risk to her own health and sanity because she thought that maybe, just maybe he could help her find a solution. But it went all wrong...and she couldn’t get him to wake up and the closer she got to her due date the more she despaired.

_”I’ve no time to waste with you.”_

The visions were horrible.

Seeing who their child was going to be drove her to the brink of sanity and then it drove her over it. Because despite the fact that he was _strong_ and _beautiful_ , he was _evil_. And she was so fearful and desperate to prevent that that she didn’t stop to think that by trying to prevent it she was causing it to occur. Hojo barely spared her a glance but she wasn’t allowed to leave the Mansion anymore...The Turks tailed her wherever she went and the litany of visions she received kept her from being lucid enough to create a plan that would get her very far in any case. She was constantly sick, constantly in pain and constantly terrified. And in her brief moments of lucidity the warnings she had been given from Grimoire, the chance she had been given with Vincent...they hammered into her like relentless phantoms she couldn’t chase away. Because she was _wrong wrong wrong_ and she was _stupid._

_**“Please** don’t do this to us!! Please Hojo, please, I **love** you!”_

_”...I never loved you._

He had.

She knew he had because he couldn’t look at her while he denied it. Couldn’t look at her sitting in an armchair, heavy with child, tears streaming down her cheeks as she recovered from another vision. Couldn’t bear the sight of what he had done but continued to do because he was too afraid to let go of his solidarity in order to be a husband...in order to be a father...in order to have a family. It had occurred to her then that she didn’t know anything about him...nothing about his family...nothing about who he had been before they’d met. It was a grave oversight, because it made her realize that she’d never known him at all...that she’d never really asked but she’d loved him anyway. Something had to have happened to him...someone had to have hurt him very badly for him to treat her this way...to treat their _child_ this way.

In the end...it didn’t matter.

“...You still haven’t chosen a name.”

Lucrecia Crescent looked up.

Lying in a hospital bed, dressed in a nondescript gown with an IV in her arm...she looked at Hojo and wished she’d never met him. And even if that wasn’t possible, she wished she’d never loved him...never seen the person buried beneath the lab coat and hung onto him even as he dissolved and disappeared. And there was a little of him there now...like a dying flame, Hojo was there behind it all. But he wasn’t willing to let himself out...wasn’t willing to let the monster go so he could become a man. He would never know what it was like to hope for something so badly only to have it crushed before him because he had decided that dreams, family, and love didn’t matter. Uncertainty...like a mahogany shadow...long fingers stretching out as if to touch...but she recoiled; curled into herself until that mask was back in place. Moisture welled in her eyes as the contractions that had been wracking her through the night began to come faster...began to tear her apart.

...She was already broken.

It was a testament to something that he was willing to let her name him. Maybe it was an accession...maybe it was an apology for what he was going to do. And she knew without having to ask that she wouldn’t be allowed to hold her baby. That she likely would never see him save for hearing him cry. Because experiments didn’t have mothers...they didn’t have fathers...they didn’t have families. Their child was doomed from the minute he was conceived because she had chosen Hojo. Whatever he was doing by letting her give him a title...it wasn’t enough. Closing her eyes, Lucrecia opened her mouth...felt her lip quiver before she pushed it down and stared blankly ahead. When she spoke, it was an apology, a prayer, and a litany of sorrow wrapped into one.

“Sephiroth…” she whispered.

_“...Call him Sephiroth…”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> **R &R**


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